"Identical to Nepal Crisis"... Why There Was Only One Victim

[Anchor]

Last year, there was a major landslide similar to the recent one, triggered by the collapse of a glacier in the Swiss Alps. However, the casualties were limited to just one death.

Correspondent Kwon Yeongin looks into why this was the case.

[Reporter]

Massive blocks of ice instantly cascade down the mountain.

A huge cloud of dust surges up from the valley as if a massive explosion has occurred.

In May of last year, the Birch Glacier collapsed in the Alpine region of Valais, Switzerland.

The landslide triggered a debris flow mixed with melted ice and rocks, and over 6 million tons of debris swept over the village at the foot of the mountain.

[Karin Keller-Sutter / Swiss President (Translation): Residents of Blatten in the canton of Valais are going through a great ordeal. Many things must still be hard to believe. We must give them time to overcome this.]

Nearly 90% of the homes were buried, but among the 400 residents, the casualties were limited to just one death.

This was because authorities discovered that the ground around the glacier was suddenly sinking about 10 days before the landslide and urgently evacuated the residents.

There are a total of 1,700 glaciers in the Alpine region.

Much like the Himalayas, the region is being affected by global warming, leading to a sharp rise in glacier collapse landslides and the overflowing of glacial lakes formed by melted glacier water.

Over the past 35 years, glacier collapse landslides in the Alps have been 2.7 times more frequent than those that occurred over the preceding 180 years.

Swiss authorities monitor glacier movement via satellites and constantly track internal noise and water pressure within the glaciers to prepare for collapses and overflows.

[Matthias Huss / Glaciologist, ETH Zurich: Holes are forming everywhere in the glacier like Swiss cheese. However, those holes are collapsing, which is having a negative impact on the glacier.]

In particular, on-site observers are deployed for visual monitoring, with 90 people working just in the canton of Valais.

On-site observers also played a major role in detecting early signs of the Birch Glacier collapse last year.

However, experts note that despite these preparations, accurately predicting glacier collapses and glacial lake outbursts remains difficult with current technology.

(Video Editing: Lee Seung-hee, Design: Kim Min-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.